


Conspiracy to commit

by Querulousgawks



Series: Tumblr Prompts [9]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, F/M, Meet-Cute, Multiple Pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 16:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5546927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Speaking of notorious gangs, Molly and Felix are <em>obvious. </em>Veronica tries not to care, but people that bad at subterfuge offend her professional pride, and she’s pretty sure her job won’t survive another Toombs-Fitzpatrick shootout (you pick up a lot, bussing tables). </p><p>It’s a problem. Molly won’t listen to anybody but Felix, and Felix probably doesn’t listen to anybody, period, except -</p><p>  <em>Shit.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Conspiracy to commit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teenagegumshoe](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=teenagegumshoe).



Molly gets her the job, not out of the goodness of her heart or anything, but because they’re always short at the bar. Another pair of hands (that _won’t_ wander the second she leans over the pool table; sometimes she hates it here) is worth whatever weird shit comes with hiring a disgraced almost-09er. Molly doesn’t waste time on pity, but for a girl that spends half the school day with a dead-blank look in her eyes, Veronica _works_. The place has never been so clean.

Usually Molly would just pick up the extra shifts, jealous of the tips and this one place she feels like she knows inside and out. But she’s been wanting to get out more, lately, talk to someone - people - she’s not related to. It’s nothing to make a big deal out of, but Veronica kind of showed up at the perfect time. Molly’s never been restless like this before.

It’s illegal, but it’s amazing how much less that matters to Veronica after she walks out of Don Lamb’s office, and of course it’s never mattered to the Fitzpatricks at all. Before…everything, her dad would have caught on to this in a heartbeat, but he’s working the unpredictable shifts of retail security and taking bond-jumper cases every week to make ends meet until they can open Mars Investigations properly; and his old friends in law enforcement don’t drink in this part of town. She tells him she’s tutoring at the Kaplan center in the same shitty neighborhood as the bar, and takes his face of shamed gratitude as permission to keep picking up groceries with her tips. 

The catcalling from middle-aged drunks is both more explicit and easier to brush off than when it comes from people who used to be her friends. There’s no memory of kindness to jar against when Nate or Liam steps too close to leer, and it’s not like anyone knows to call her _Ronnie._

So the den of the second-most notorious gang in town feels safer than Neptune High: Lilly would have thought that was hilarious. Veronica thinks about her a lot, when she’s washing up in the back, leaning against the wall by the trash on her break. How Lilly would have handled Nate with a smile and Liam with a sneer, that snap judgment she had such confidence in. Sometimes, she wonders if Lilly was ever here, if Logan ever bought from Liam’s boys, if this was somewhere they went to escape their naive best friends. Most of the time, she can convince herself it doesn’t matter. No longer that girl, right?

Speaking of notorious gangs, Molly and Felix are _obvious._ Veronica tries not to care, but people that bad at subterfuge offend her professional pride, and she’s pretty sure her job won’t survive _another_ Toombs-Fitzpatrick shootout (you pick up a lot, bussing tables). Telling Molly not to do something will just guarantee that she does the thing, and she can’t exactly march up to Felix and announce (to his ribcage) that he needs to at least start parking the bike a few more blocks away. 

It’s a problem. Molly won’t listen to anybody but Felix, and Felix probably doesn’t listen to anybody, period, except -

_Shit._

Well, at least Weevil’s not a foot taller than she is. And she even knows him, a little, from the days when she was pink!Veronica and they would pass him outside the diner, Weevil saying _Sheriff_ in a tone that would make her dad’s face get a little irritated and a little more amused. He still says it, is the thing. Veronica’s seen the kids on the flagpole, she’s not under any illusions here but that - matters, to her, still. More than respect to herself would matter. 

It's some mixture of her old self and her new one, of suspicion and gratitude, that brings Veronica to his neighborhood after her shift.

They don't know it, but it's the first draft of what's to become a familiar scene: Veronica Mars is at the Navarro gate and Weevil is behind it, deciding if he should open up. He hasn’t given much thought to Lilly’s little hanger-on, can’t look too closely at anything near the cloud of bitterness and fear that surrounds her death. But he watched this girl's face turn blank and her spine iron-straight at the end of the school year, can’t help but see the same damn thing when he catches the old Sheriff moonlighting security at box stores all over town.  He’s not wasting time figuring out how he felt about Lilly, but the Mars family, what’s left of it, has his respect.

Which doesn’t mean he wants this white girl on his doorstep at night, shaking with exhaustion and smelling like a bar - not a good sign at all. More like a neon sign that says _trouble,_ lighting up the neighborhood and pointing right to where she’s absently flipping the latch. So he hustles her through and they lean on the railing in the darkest side of the porch, between the window where Ophelia’s light is out already and the corner of the house, and he says, "look, if this is about Lilly’s death -"

 _-_ just as she says, "listen, Felix and Molly are gonna get caught - wait, Lilly?"

-just as he says "Felix and  _who?"_  

But as they stutter at each other Weevil comes forward off the railing, panicking in the Lilly-memory fog and the idea that there’s a secret this big about his best friend, a gaping hole where their sure easy friendship belonged, and when he can think again he realizes he's boxed her in, _shit,_ she’s dead pale and tiny and he probably scared her, she doesn’t have Lilly’s fearlessness and she’s going to scream, almost definitely.

But Lilly’s sweet little shadow just pushes off from the wall he’s got her crowded against and says evenly, an inch from his face: "You talk first."

And he thinks: _not again, Eli, you moron_ , even as he watches her lips move, sees her blush the moment she notices how close they are. "Not here," he manages, and he doesn't just mean their secrets. Her mouth firms up, in - irritation? resignation?

"Dog Beach, tomorrow morning at seven," Veronica says. She half-smiles at his flinch, ducks under his arm, and walks away without saying goodbye.

If he leans against the wall long after she drives away, if she rests her head against the wheel for a while after she pulls into her spot at the apartment...well, it doesn't matter.

Nobody has to know.

**Author's Note:**

> For Teenagegumshoe, who prompted 'Veronica/Weevil + restaurant AU' over on Tumblr.  
> 


End file.
